I should be wishing this had never happened, and yet how can I? I cannot begin to explain the emotional turmoil and confusion that comes from knowing that my greatest joy came at the expense of your happiness, and our friendship. The knowledge that I hurt you deeply is something I live with every day.
I know that my feelings for Adam vastly eclipse his for me. Perhaps I should care more about that than I do, but unlike you I never had expectations of grand passion or romance. I know he is marrying me because he feels driven by obligation. His feelings for me are a fraction of his feelings for you, and we would not have found ourselves in this position were it not for the baby...”
Liza stopped. Baby? Baby?
“Liza?” Her mother’s voice came down the phone. “Why have you stopped?”
“Ruth was pregnant?”
“Yes. Please keep reading. I want to hear all of it.”
Pregnant.
No wonder her mother had walked away and not tried to fix it.
Liza forced herself to carry on reading.
“You know that all I ever wanted was a child, and a family of my own. You used to tease me about it. What was the point of a college education if I had no intention of putting it to good use? Where was my ambition? But I was never like you. I know that Adam came to see you after he found out—” Liza heard her mother’s indrawn breath. That part obviously came as a shock. Should she pause? No. Not unless she was asked to. “He told me that he went to you and begged you to take him back. To forgive. And he told me that you refused to listen and that you told him to live up to his responsibilities. He tried to see you again, but you’d left. You walked away to give us a chance. You removed yourself as an option. Even in our parting you were a better friend to me than I was to you.”
Liza broke off, her throat thick with tears. “Mum—”
“Don’t stop, Liza. It’s hard to hear and I’d like to get through it as fast as I can. You have no idea how relieved I am you’re the one reading them.”
Liza swallowed. Her job wasn’t to judge or ask for more detail. Her mother needed her to read the letters.
She wiped tears from her cheeks and focused on the words.
“And now he resents me, and for that I don’t blame him even though he is at least half responsible for this child we made. I have no expectations that he will be faithful, and next time I write to you—and I will write, even if you don’t read these letters—I may well be a single mother.”
Liza cleared her throat. “He wanted you back. You loved him, and you could have had him back.”
“I loved him more than anything, and I was heartbroken, but I knew I would survive without him. I wasn’t so sure about Ruth. She was always vulnerable. From that first day we met in college, I protected her.”
Did her mother want to say more? This type of conversation was new to both of them.
“It must have been a special friendship.” Liza trod carefully, wanting to be sensitive. “What was she like?”
“She’d had a difficult childhood. Lonely. Very strict parents. They were older, I believe, although I never met them. They didn’t visit her.”
Liza put the letters down. “How did you meet Adam?”
“At drama club. I dragged Ruth along with me. Adam was there. He was a medical student and rather full of himself I suppose, but I found him entertaining.” She paused. “I’ve never told this story to anyone before.”
Liza heard the uncertainty in her mother’s voice. “I’m glad you’re sharing it with me.”
There was a pressure in her chest, a swell of emotion that threatened to overwhelm.
“So am I. Where were we? Oh yes, Adam. He was one of those annoying people who was good at everything. He seemed to achieve what he wanted with remarkably little effort. I remember we did Much Ado About Nothing the following summer. I was Beatrice and he was Benedict. You know how I love that play. The banter. The energy. It mimicked our real-life relationship. Ruth was forever intervening and begging us to stop arguing. She was a gentle soul.”
Liza lay back on the bed, picturing it. “I didn’t know you loved drama.” She was learning so much about her mother.
“Only at college. After that I never stayed in one place long enough to commit to rehearsals.”
Because of Adam and Ruth. Because her mother had walked away from that part of her life. This had to be a tough conversation for Kathleen. “I bet you were an incredible Beatrice.”
“I believe feisty was a word that came up in more than one of the reviews.”
She could easily picture her mother in the role. “That must be where Caitlin gets her love of drama.” She diffused some of the emotion by steering the conversation away from the personal for a few minutes. Her mother wasn’t the only one who needed a breather. Liza did too. She was struggling to hold it together, but she knew it was important that she didn’t overreact or make her mother uncomfortable by revealing her own feelings. And hers were complicated, of course. For her it wasn’t only about what she was hearing, it was about how it finally felt to have her mother’s trust. “We can blame DNA for all those stage-worthy moments.”
“Perhaps. Although she seems to give her best performances away from the stage.”
They both laughed, and Liza pulled the phone a little closer. She was laughing with her mother. Laughing! And it felt good. “She does indeed. Tell me more about you and Adam.”
“We were a cliché, really. Our romance onstage spilled offstage. But Ruth and I were inseparable. I wasn’t going to be one of those people who ditched their friends when they fell in love, so invariably we ended up doing things together, the three of us. Ruth had gone to buy a picnic the day Adam proposed to me on the riverbank. Our exams had ended that day. I’d had a glass or two of champagne and was feeling excessively cheerful and optimistic about life. He produced a ring.”
Liza heard the wistful note in her voice. “The one in the drawer.”
“Yes. I believe it’s valuable, although I don’t know for sure. You’re probably wondering why I still have it.” Kathleen paused, as if she wasn’t sure of the answer herself. “He refused to take it back, and I couldn’t bring myself to sell it. I don’t quite know why. Maybe I thought it might act as a caution.”
At some point Liza would urge her to store it in a safer place, but that wasn’t the priority. Right now her thoughts were only for her mother. “You accepted his proposal. So where did Ruth come into the story? How did that happen?”
Her mother didn’t immediately answer. “I was naive. I believed Ruth to be impervious to his charms. She was the one person he didn’t seem able to impress. And Adam, being Adam, would have felt compelled to convert her into an admirer. I’m sure he would have done the hard work, because Ruth would never have proactively gone after him. Not that I’m absolving her of blame. But I see how it might have happened. Adam was godlike, and she would have been flattered. But it turned out her feelings ran far deeper for him than I’d thought.”